Next week, 25 participants from various Jewish organizations in Pittsburgh will travel to Detroit to participate in JPRO19. JPRO is a 120 year old organization by and for Jewish communal professionals and this conference is now oversold with 565 participants from all over North America. I’m really proud to have served as JPRO’s President for the last two years and this conference will be using Detroit as a learning laboratory to educate, excite and inspire. Our Federation was able to secure dollars to help highly subsidize this opportunity.

Perhaps the greatest potential outcome of this conference for Pittsburgh will be the shared experience that our professionals will have in traveling by bus there and back, providing us the ability to think about how we take our learnings and apply them to our work in a collaborative way across agencies. Our Federation established a theme after the October 27th shooting: “Stronger Together”. I know that when organizations work together on common goals, we achieve more. That kind of partnership between and among institutions can only happen when there are trusting relationships between the professionals. This experience will help us grow those relationships. We already have so many great examples of these collaborations in Pittsburgh and I cannot wait to see what more we might be able to do.

Wishing you a Shabbat Shalom.